Generally, with the increased use of portable electronic equipment and devices such as cell phones, GPS navigation equipment, portable music sources, etc, the need for auxiliary power supply systems is increasing. Available options at present are to charge the battery associated with the portable equipment from a 110/230 volt AC power outlet or to charge the equipment from the 12 volt DC power supply of an automobile. However, such power outlets are not always available when needed.
Previous attempts at generating the needed electrical power from the energy available from the user have been made. These include the use of the user's body temperature to generate electricity by thermo-electric affects, the use of piezo-electric affects to generate electrical power from the users compression and relaxation of a piezoelectric substance as the user walks, dielectric elastomers (electrostrictive polymers) converting mechanical strain to electrical energy, the use of trapped charge to induce a current in an associated conductor and several others. All of these have suffered from defects in their applicability to the generation of useful amounts of power, which will be obvious to one of skill in the art, among these defects being expense, fragility, area of material and volume of apparatus needed to provide useful output power, and complexity.
Therefore, the need remains for a simple, robust and inexpensive method of generating useful amounts of electrical power from the action of walking or running on the part of the user of such means.
This need is addressed in a novel and inventive manner by the disclosed invention.